During an emergency event, such as one involving a public safety responder, the responder can for instance push a button on their land mobile radio (LMR). This indicates an emergency condition to the LMR system and causes the LMR system to elevate priority for that device and to indicate the emergency condition to a console operator. Thus, existing technology enables an elevation of QoS for resources to the LMR device that reported the emergency condition.
However, in today's public safety environment, there are typically a number of devices that are related to a particular public safety user, for instance one involved in an emergency event. For example, the public safety user can himself carry multiple devices such as the LMR radio and one or more broadband devices. In addition, other devices may be within proximity of the responder involved in the emergency event or may share the same public safety agency as the responder involved in the emergency event. Moreover, one or more of the devices related to the responder involved in the emergency event may be connected to different access networks using the same or different radio technologies. A shortcoming of today's technology is that there is currently no effective way to set QoS for one or more bearers allocated to at least two of the devices deemed to be related to the user involved in the emergency event.
Thus, there exists a need for a method and system for coordinating the setting of QoS for one or more bearers for a set of communication devices related to a user, in response to an indication of an emergency event for the user.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of various embodiments. In addition, the description and drawings do not necessarily require the order illustrated. It will be further appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. Apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the various embodiments so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. Thus, it will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, common and well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment may not be depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments.